He called out, “Come down, wretched boy—by Allah, take pity on us!” So I climbed down; he set a jewel-studded turban on my head, kissed the ground, and then said, “Peace be upon you, O Commander of the Faithful.” He led me out to the people, who likewise kissed the ground and greeted me with the salutation of the caliphate (1).

I say: He was a rebellious devil, a stubborn tyrant, ever-changing in mood, a prodigious shedder of blood, of a vile creed and boundless cunning—yet open-handed and much praised. His affair was astonishing and his story strange; he was the Pharaoh of his age, forever inventing new decrees and forcing the populace to follow them.

He ordered that the Companions—may Allah be pleased with them—be reviled, and that the insults be inscribed on the doors of mosques and along the streets. He commanded his officials to join in the cursing and to slaughter all dogs in the year 395 AH. He abolished the drink fuqqāʿ (2) and the dish mulūkhiyya, declared unlawful every fish without scales (3), and when he caught vendors of any of those items he had them executed (4).

In 402 AH he banned the sale of fresh dates, gathered an immense quantity of them and burned it, forbade the sale of grapes, and destroyed the vineyards (5). He ordered the Christians to hang around their necks a cross weighing one and a quarter raṭl according to the Damascene measure. He compelled the Jews to hang round their necks a qurmiyya of the same weight—an allusion to the head of the calf they once worshipped—to wear black turbans, and to enter the public baths bearing both the cross and the qurmiyya. He later set aside separate bathhouses for them.

That same year he ordered the demolition of the Church of al-Qumāmah (6) and the destruction of the churches of Egypt.